In the summer of 1939 a specially chartered aircraft could easily have carried a passenger from London to Moscow in a single day, but in the summer of 1941 such a journey was one of the most difficult, hazardous and wasteful of time that anyone could undertake. It would have been easier, safer and far quicker to travel to Honolulu or Mandalay, since direct stratosphere flight had not yet been established between Britain and Russia, and the great swathe of Nazi-held Europe cut the two Allies off from all normal means of communication.
As it was, Gregory and Stefan Kuporovitch had to wait for a suitable day when an aircraft could fly them from Southern England far out into the Atlantic, to avoid the unwelcome attentions of enemy aircraft based on the French Biscay coast, and so to Gibraltar. From Gibraltar they had to run the gauntlet of the Western Mediterranean to besieged Malta, the single foothold still retained by the Allies in the centre of the inland sea. Thence, in constant danger from German and Italian war ‘planes, they had to make another thousand-mile flight to Cairo. Having safely accomplished these three long hops they could congratulate themselves on having got through the most risky part of their journey, but the worst of its delays, discomforts and uncertainties still lay ahead.
Anxious as Sir Pellinore had been that they should reach Russia as soon as possible, he had not dared to make a request for any special priority to be accorded to their travel permits after Cairo. The Russians having been virtually barred out of Europe for so long and then having, of their own choice, for many years restricted all but official contact with the outside world, were extremely suspicious of their new Allies. Even members of the Military Mission, sent to help them, found themselves subject to the most infuriating delays and scrutinies; and if the least indication had been given that Messrs. Sallust and “Cooper” were en route for the Soviet Union on matters other and more urgent than routine work under the British Press Attaché, a score of excuses would have been produced to prevent them entering Russia at all.
In consequence, from Cairo onwards, the two travellers had to make the best arrangements they could for themselves and, as civilians of no apparent importance in a military zone, their path was far from being strewn with roses. Their cover, as journalists, which they had perforce to disclose wherever they went, proved, in most cases, a hindrance rather than a help; for the majority of responsible officers live in perpetual, and not altogether unfounded, dread that any visiting pressman might later write up some “human interest” story which, while innocent enough in itself, would give away to the enemy information prejudicial to forthcoming operations. But the worst of their troubles arose from the fact that German agents, French quislings, and anti-British schemers of the Arabic world had, between them, succeeded in making the Near East a seething cauldron of unrest throughout the whole of the summer.
In May, the pro-Nazi Premier of Iraq, Raschid Ali, had staged a coup d’état, kidnapped his boy king and declared against the British; necessitating offensive operations which had left a certain bitterness in their wake. In June, the Vichy French in Syria had given the Germans facilities to establish air bases there, and although the bitter resistance of the Petainists had been overcome by the 12th of July, they were still doing all they could to sabotage British interests. The situation there was now further complicated by the high-handed actions of the Free French and the hatred of the Syrian Nationalists for all Frenchmen irrespective of their politics, which led to riots, shootings and every sort of trouble for the unfortunate British, who, on the one hand, did not wish to antagonise their Free French allies, and, on the other, were appallingly embarrassed by the recently published “Atlantic Charter”, under which the Syrians claimed their right to independence. On top of this the violent, avaricious and despotic Shah of Persia had sold himself to the Nazis, refused to expel the hundreds of agents they had established in his country and had declared his intention of resisting by force of arms any attempt by the British and Russians to use his territory as a military supply route in their common struggle against Germany.
During the middle and latter part of August, Gregory and Kuporovitch were tempted a score of times quietly to fade out and, ignoring the British military controls, make their own way to the Russian frontier. They would certainly have reached it more quickly, but the trouble was that they would then not have the requisite number of rubber stamps on their passports to show that they had arrived there by orthodox means, and it was absolutely essential that they should enter Russia without the least suspicion attaching to them. In consequence, they had to kick their heels in transit camps and small hotels for days on end in Cairo, Haifa, Damascus and Baghdad while awaiting the okays of security officers.
On 25th of August, British and Russian forces entered Iran, and on the 28th, the Persian Army, having offered only a token resistance, was ordered by the new Premier, Ali Faranghi, to cease fire. By pulling a fast one, that their status as pressmen entitled them to go to the front as much in Persia as it did in Russia, the two travellers succeeded in entering Iran with the British forces operating from Khaniquin; but when they linked up with the Russians advancing south from the Caspian they were not allowed to proceed further. Luckily, however, a genuine war correspondent decided to make for Teheran and gave them a lift in his car to the Persian capital.
Here they were able to make direct contact with the Russian authorities in the Soviet Legation. Their passports and visas were all in order but they met with a sponge-like combination of politeness and procrastination which resisted all their efforts to get any satisfaction for ten days. Gregory had little doubt that, in the meantime, their suspicious allies were making enquiries about them in Moscow, but he knew that it would be futile to leave Teheran for the frontier until they had secured the special permits without which, visa or no visa, no one was now allowed to cross it.
At last permission to proceed was granted; a Russian courier was attached to them and, having accompanied them to the border, saw them safely into an old-fashioned but comfortable broad-gauge train on the Soviet side, with strict injunctions that in no circumstances were they to leave it until they reached the capital. On Friday the 12th of September, six weeks after leaving London, they arrived in Moscow.
On presenting their papers at the British Embassy, a junior secretary took them to an annexe, that had recently been acquired to house the additional staff necessitated by the new alliance. Here they were introduced to a number of people, given a bedroom between them and made members of the Press Section Mess.
During their journey they had held many discussions as to how they should set about their mission once they arrived in Russia. Kuporovitch had been pessimistic from the beginning, and had declared on half a dozen occasions that, while it was just possible that they might find means of getting reliable information as to Stalin’s health, any attempt to assess Russia’s resources would prove far beyond their scope, and that the chances of their finding out the final line upon which the Soviet armies must stand or surrender were positively nil.
The fact that Gregory had never lived in Russia, and knew nothing of the special difficulties which would confront them there, made him much more optimistic. He reasoned that as two unusually shrewd observers, both having considerable military knowledge, they ought, provided they were allowed reasonable freedom of movement, to be able to see enough and talk with enough people to form a pretty sound appreciation of the proportion of soldiers to men of military age who were still civilians, of the rapidity with which new classes were being called up, and of the length of time it took to convert the intakes into battle-worthy troops. To find out about Russia’s future strategy would obviously be a much more difficult matter. But here, he felt, that if only he could meet enough people, particularly Soviet officers, and discuss prospects with them, in time the pieces of the jigsaw would fall into place. Then, if he could get the impression he had formed himself tacitly confirmed in casual conversation by one or two talkative senior officers, he would at least have something well worth reporting to Sir Pellinore.
In pursuance of this policy of securing a sort of “Gallop Poll” by talking to anybody and everybody whose views might be worth hearing, at dinner that night they entered into conversation with every member of the Press Section Mess, and obtained quite a useful collection of miscellaneous information as a background for their further specific investigations.
The official rate of exchange made the rouble incredibly expensive to foreigners. It was easy to get a far higher rate “round the corner”, but even then there was little that one could purchase with one’s roubles when one got them. Such things as could be bought, including the personal services of the Muscovites, male and female, could however, be had for a song if the purchaser was in a position to pay for them with cigarettes, soap, perfume or lipstick.
At this point, Gregory and Stefan found it difficult not to smile, since the latter, knowing perfectly well what sort of conditions he was likely to find in his own country, had taken appropriate measures, and from Cairo onwards each of them had been lugging an additional suit-case crammed with just such priceless commodities.
Their new acquaintances went on to inform them that the Ballet was as superb as ever, the Opera excellent and the cinema shows, apart from the high quality of their technique, lousy, as they had practically no humour or story value and were, one and all, simply vehicles for Government propaganda. The public went regularly and made no complaints, because they were conditioned to this, and not one in ten thousand of them had ever seen anything different; but these endless documentaries and films with a moral were a poor form of entertainment.
Nevertheless the Bolsheviks’ long experience in the art of propaganda was now proving of enormous value, both in keying their own people up to make the maximum possible efforts for the war and as an insidious weapon against the enemy. They were absolute realists and, knowing that they were fighting a completely unscrupulous enemy, they arranged their broadcasts with no regard at all to the truth, but solely on their calculated effectiveness—a game at which they were daily making rings round Dr. Goebbels. Yet, wherever possible, they made the truth serve them too, and every programme included accounts of the spectacular heroism or high production feats of individual soldiers or war workers as well as of units, divisions and factories; a policy that filled the British pressmen, who, after two years of war, were still muzzled on such matters, with envy, and an added contempt for their own amateurishly-run Ministry of Information.
They all agreed that Russian morale was excellent and did not believe that this was due only to the skilful internal propaganda. Various factors were advanced to account for this. In the first place the Russians had certain qualities in common with the British. The two countries alone, of all those in Europe, had never been entirely overrun and subdued by an enemy in the whole of their history; therefore it was impossible for either people to envisage total defeat. Both peoples were also essentially home-dwellers, as opposed to the café-frequenting nations of the Continent; both were intensive cultivators of their own soil, the British in their millions of small gardens and the Russians on their farms; and this attachment to home and land gave them an additional incentive to fight desperately in their defence. Added to this it was clear that, whatever the shortcomings of the Soviet régime might be, it had at least caused the Russian masses to feel that they now were the real owners of their country, and that not only the land and the cities, but also the parks, palaces, theatres, stadiums, museums, and even the works of their artists, scientists and writers, were in fact the personal property of each and every one of them.
This high morale was, moreover, by no means attributable to the type of blind patriotic neurosis which had gripped and given a spurious self-confidence to many nations during the first stages of the 1914–1918 war. The Russians had now been waging a gigantic conflict on a thousand mile front for nearly three months, and if enemy claims were to be believed, their losses in dead and prisoners already ran into millions. Even on the most conservative estimate they had taken appalling punishment and, so far, with only brief local successes here and there, been thrown back on every sector.
When Gregory left London, at the end of July, they had already been driven out of the greater part of the protective belt of foreign territory that they had secured as a screen for their own frontiers during their Machiavellian alliance with Hitler. Russian Poland, Lithuania and Bessarabia had been overrun. The Germans were pouring north into Latvia and west into the Ukraine, and were only being held with difficulty at Smolensk.
Their initial defeats had compelled them to divide their long front into three commands, under Voroshilov in the north, Timoshenko in the centre and Budenny in the south; but this had not saved them from further disaster. During August, von Leeb had driven through Latvia to Esthonia, taken Novgorod, reached Lake Ilmen and forced Voroshilov back against the Valdi hills; while von Rundstedt had proved more than a match for Budenny, hurling him back through the southern Ukraine, encircling Odessa, capturing Nikolaieff and thrusting towards the Crimea; Timoshenko alone had managed temporarily to stem the German torrent in the centre, but von Bock had smashed his southern flank, taken Gomel and almost cut him off from Budenny.
Since leaving Baghdad, Gregory and Stefan had been able to follow the news only with difficulty, but now their new friends brought them up to date as far as they could do so as, apart from the fact that the Soviet communiqués were often intentionally misleading, it was doubtful if even the Kremlin had more than a rough idea of the general situation throughout the whole length of their vast front.
In the north von Leeb had driven a wedge between Voroshilov and Timoshenko, cut the Moscow-Leningrad railway, and now claimed to have reached the shores of Lake Ladoga, to the north-east of the latter city, while the Finns, supported by several German divisions, had resumed their war against the Russians, forcing them to withdraw from the thinly-held Karelian isthmus to the north-west, gained from the Finns by the armistice of March 1940; so the Russian Marshal and his northern army were now surrounded and besieged in Leningrad.
In the south Odessa was still holding out, but von Rundstedt had inflicted further defeats on Budenny, the most serious of which had been the spectacular break-through of von Kleist’s armoured columns to the Dnieper. By it the Russians had been deprived of the huge hydro-electric plant, powered by the giant dam at Dnepropetrovsk, that supplied one of their greatest manufacturing areas, and the blow was a heavy one. The penetration towards the Crimea had deepened and Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, was now semi-encircled.
In the hope of relieving the pressure on his two colleagues, Timoshenko had launched a desperate counter-offensive in the centre. Under him General Koniev had defeated the German Panzer expert Guderian, and the whole of von Bock’s Army Group had been badly mauled in the neighbourhoods of Smolensk and Gomel; but with both his flanks now in the air, it was doubtful if Timoshenko would be able to hold the ground he had recaptured for long.
The only hopeful feature of the campaign appeared to be the Russians’ determination to stick at nothing that might eventually help to defeat their enemy. In all the previous German Blitzkriegs it had proved sufficient for them to send their armoured columns forging ahead to the limit of their endurance for all resistance to collapse behind them. But the Russians were made of sterner stuff than the other people that the Panzer armies had overrun. Army corps, divisions and even companies that found themselves cut off had no thought of surrender, but fought on to the last, knowing that by so doing they were giving invaluable help to their comrades further east, who were still opposing the enemy spearheads. Their stubbornness resulted in thousands of German troops designated for the front line having to be held back to deal with them; but even when their formations were cut up and they ran out of ammunition the survivors took to the woods, from which they issued as small, desperate bands at night to sabotage the enemy lines of communication.
Many thousands of women had joined those bands in the enemy rear and were fighting shoulder to shoulder with the men; and wherever the Germans appeared other women were deliberately setting fire to their own homes and crops in pursuance of Stalin’s “scorched earth” policy. It was this nation-wide determination not only to die if need be, but to beggar oneself and even see one’s children starve, rather than allow food or shelter to fall into the enemy’s hands which provided an offset of incalculable value against the actual territorial gains of the German armies.
In their room that night, Gregory and Kuporovitch talked the situation over. The Russian was as confident as ever that his country would emerge from the struggle victorious, but Gregory was not so sanguine. It was obvious that these “Maquis” operations, which were being carried out behind the German lines on a scale never before envisaged, must be creating a heavy drain on the enemy’s resources, but with so many Russian cities either captured or cut off the reduction of Russian resources must be even greater. If the Germans could maintain the momentum of their advance for another three months the whole of European Russia would be in their hands, and Gregory did not see how the Russians could possibly continue to keep their armies in the field if they had to rely entirely on their Asiatic territories for munitions and supplies.
Against this Kuporovitch argued that, even if it were early summer, no army could keep up the pace the Germans had set themselves for a further three months, and that now that winter was fast approaching offensive operations would be rendered doubly difficult. He forecast that the Germans would continue to have gradually lessening local successes for another month, that the heavy snows would then bring about conditions much more favourable to the Russians, and that during the long winter new armies would be built up which would roll the Germans back after the ground had dried in the late spring.
However, they at length agreed that they were both only theorising, and went to bed.
The following morning they went over to the Embassy and the Press Attaché presented them to the Ambassador. Sir Stafford Cripps had already been informed by a “Most Secret” cypher telegram from London that they were being sent to Russia for special duty. However, in accordance with the Protocol, no Ambassador is ever embarrassed by being made aware of activities which might mitigate against his own standing with the foreign Power to which he is accredited, so Sir Stafford neither knew nor enquired the real reason why they had been sent out to him. His instructions were simply that they should be given some employment in his Press Section which would leave them such freedom as they might desire yet at the same time qualify them to seek interviews and be granted travel facilities as members of the Embassy staff.
The Ambassador gave his Press Attaché suitable instructions and enjoined secrecy upon him regarding the dummy posts that were to be created for the two new arrivals, then he formally wished them luck in their undertaking, and they left him to his papers.
The Press Attaché proved both amiable and helpful. He was clearly intrigued by these two “cloak and dagger merchants” for whose arrangements he had been made responsible and, taking them to his own room, he enquired if they had any suggestions as to suitable cover for themselves. Gregory replied that their work could best be accomplished under some apparent activity which would necessitate their visiting a number of Russia’s principal cities and, if possible, making a few trips to various parts of the front as well.
“I’m afraid that is asking for the moon,” the Attaché smiled. “You can move about in Moscow quite freely and I can probably get you permits to visit some of the larger cities that are still a long way behind the battle zone, but visits to the front are absolutely out of the question. Our Allies are almost unbelievably cagey about everything to do with their military operations and even General Mason MacFarlane, the head of our Military Mission, has not been allowed to see anything of the fighting yet.”
“Visits to some of the big reinforcement depots, where the new intakes of recruits are being mustered and trained, would probably serve just as well,” Kuporovitch remarked.
“That could possibly be arranged, but what excuse could we put forward as your reason for wishing to visit such places?”
“Statistics,” said Gregory thoughtfully. “An enquiry into statistics would cover an interest in a multitude of subjects. We’d have to keep off figures which might be liable to reveal important military secrets, of course; but we could say that we represented certain important British scientific journals and were gathering data to write articles for them on the war potential of the Russians as a people. A lot of it would be semi-medical stuff. Average height, weight, age and general state of fitness of the recruits; prevalence of various hereditary diseases among them; their powers of resistance to cold and heat; typical diet upon which they have been brought up; percentages of pre-war types of employment; ratio of single against married men; average number of children; numbers in family, and so on. By and large, the Russians are an extraordinarily healthy looking lot, so their authorities should not object to that.”
The Attaché nodded. “No, that sounds a good idea. But of course, they’ll lie to you like blazes, and let you see only the crack troops that have been specially hand-picked to reinforce their Guard Divisions. It’s always like that here. They keep special hospitals, creches, factories, in apple-pie order solely to impress visiting foreigners, and over what happens elsewhere an impenetrable veil is drawn. It’s not done with any deliberate intention of misleading one, but just because they want everybody to think well of them, and they honestly believe that in showing the sample they are only anticipating a little the high standard they will have throughout the whole country one fine day.”
“I don’t mind how many lies they tell us,” Gregory grinned, “if only they’ll let us get around a bit under our own steam.”
So the matter was arranged, and Gregory and Kuporovitch were given a small office at the top of the building, with two tables, four chairs, pens, inks, pencils, stationery and a card on the door bearing their names, underneath which was written “Statistical Department (Press Section)”.
They had arrived in Moscow on a Friday and, having made their arrangements on Saturday morning, they spent the rest of the weekend wandering about the capital. Gregory found that having Kuporovitch with him now proved an enormous advantage, as the Russian could drop into casual conversation with all sorts of people who, regarding him as one of themselves, talked perfectly freely, and were not put off by his own presence, since he had adopted the expedient of wearing a bandage, as though he had been wounded, over his mouth.
The Russians are a talkative lot and will argue with anyone about anything, until any hour in the morning, but despite the general garrulousness of the people with whom Kuporovitch scraped acquaintance they learned nothing that was of any value to them in connection with their mission. These personal contacts only confirmed what their Press colleagues had told them; the people were as uncompromisingly anti-Nazi as the British and just as confident in final victory. Uncle Joe Stalin, with his battle cry of “Death to the German Invaders”, was as popular as Winston Churchill was in Britain, and the masses were more solidly behind him than they had ever been before; but they knew nothing about his health and they had no idea of the size of their Army.
As Kuporovitch pointed out, rather glumly, this was not really surprising, as the Soviet Government issues no Army List and no details of the expenditure on the Fighting Services are ever published; but Gregory was not unduly disappointed, since he was more or less killing time until he could contact more promising sources, and mooching round like this both helped to fill in his background and gave him a good idea of the layout of the city.
The weather was becoming distinctly chilly and, it was reported, the first snow had fallen in Leningrad on the Friday; so on Monday morning they took some of their store of soap and went in search of furs, and the goloshes without which the Russians never move abroad in the winter. On their return with their purchases they found a message from their nominal master saying that he would like to see them, so they went along to his office.
“You are in luck,” the Press Attaché told them immediately they presented themselves. “It might have taken two or three weeks to get permission for you to visit the sort of places you want to see; but I ran into General Alyabaiev this morning. He used to be on the staff of the Russian Embassy in London, so he speaks English, and he is now one of the big shots in the Moscow garrison. I told him about you and he has offered to show you round some of the reinforcement depots personally.”
“Splendid!” smiled Gregory. “Thank you so much. When is this likely to happen?”
“He is completing a round of inspections tomorrow and will pick you up here in his car at eight o’clock. You will find him very easy to get on with. All the soldiers are. I don’t know why it is, but they are always far more co-operative than the Russian Civil Servants.”
“Perhaps that is because the civilians come under the surveillance of the secret police,” Gregory hazarded, “whereas the service people don’t—at least not to the same degree—so they can afford to be more maty without drawing suspicions upon themselves. Anyhow, that suits me, as most of my business will be with the soldiers.”
When they had left the room Kuporovitch said: “Since this General speaks English it will be unnecessary for me to accompany you tomorrow. Although I know him only by name it is just possible that he might remember me. Someone is bound to do so sooner or later, but the longer we can avoid anyone raking up my past the better.”
In consequence it was decided that Stefan should develop a chill on the liver, and the following morning Gregory waited alone to meet General Alyabaiev, who was well over an hour late.
The Russian proved to be a short, thick-set, dark man, with merry black eyes and a ready laugh. He had spent eighteen months in London during the early days of the Soviet Embassy, when it was housed in Grosvenor Square, and had enjoyed himself immensely; as the amenities of Moscow before the era of the Five-Year Plans had been few indeed, and London, by comparison, an absolute Paradise. His sense of humour had prevented him from feeling resentment at some of the more stuffy English, who, he said, had clearly regarded him as a professional assassin, and he had met enough of the more broad-minded kind to secure for himself a thoroughly good time; and the memory of it had made him one hundred per cent pro-British.
Gregory was soon on excellent terms with him, and they spent the morning inspecting a number of depots, at which the visitor could not help but be impressed with the fine physique and high morale of the new intakes. He asked a great many questions, all of which were answered promptly and with apparent frankness, but he noted down the statistics he was given only because it was necessary to the rôle he was playing, since they had little bearing on the broad strategic picture that it was his object to obtain.
As they were driving back he remarked on the excellent discipline of the men he had seen training and their obvious respect for their officers.
“Ah, it took a war to do that,” laughed the little General. “In the old days of peace we ’ave the Political Commissar to every regiment, an’ ’e push the nose in everywhere, so that ’alf the officers are frightened to ‘ave firmness with the men. But we fight the Finns an’ these little people give great big Russia a black eye. The Marshals say to Stalin, ‘Without discipline wars cannot be won. You take away the Political Commissars an’ we will soon have the war finished,’ so the Commissars were took, a new spirit was quickly there, an’ the war was won. Now, ef a sub-lieutenant gets in a tramcar every soldier jumps up to offer seat. That ees good, an’ right, because the officer ‘as passed ’igher tests than the man an’ more is expected of him, so it ees proper that they should pay ’im respect.”
Just as the General was about to set Gregory down in front of the Embassy he said: “I can arrange for you to visit some of our intake centres further east, ef you are wanting that. But I think you waste your time, now I have shown you our routine. It ees much similar in all other places.”
“I suppose so,” Gregory agreed. “Still, my articles would carry more weight if I could write on data that I’ve acquired in other places as well as Moscow.”
“Perhaps,” the General shrugged, not very enthusiastically. “All right, then; let me ‘ave an outline of such programme as you propose yourself, at the reception tomorrow night, an’ I will tell you then what ees possible.”
“Thanks very much, but I’m afraid I haven’t been asked to any reception.”
“It ees given at the ’otel Metropole to receive the Polish Generals in exile. Many were our prisoners from the Polish campaign of nineteen-thirty-nine, but now they become Allies an’ they will form a Polish Legion to fight the Germans with us. The Corps Diplomatic ees invited to send its representatives, but ef you are not of those selected I will ‘ave sent to you a special card.”
Having thanked him for his kindness on parting, Gregory lunched in the Press Section Mess and afterwards retired with Kuporovitch to their office,
“You know, Stefan,” he said, tilting back his chair and putting his feet up on his desk, “we’re not getting anywhere.”
The Russian raised his black eyebrows. “Did you expect to, my friend, so quickly? These matters take time.”
“Of course,” Gregory shrugged impatiently. “It’s not that. The trouble is that we’re not going to work the right way. That little General was nice as pie this morning, and he gave me all the information I could decently ask for about several bunches of stalwart hayseeds who were going off quite cheerfully to give their lives for old Mother Russia; but what have I got out of it? Damn all. What is more, just before I left him he said a mouthful. He told me that if he fixed up for me to visit similar depots in other cities I’d see exactly the same sort of thing, so I’d simply be wasting my time. If they let me go I wouldn’t see the same sort of thing, of course. At least, not quite. The chaps I was shown were trained reservists recalled to the colours. One could see that with half an eye. Whereas out in the Provinces the intakes would be mainly raw material. But that’s neither here nor there. I want to know how many of these birds can be trained and equipped in the whole of Russia during the next six months, and no amount of snooping round regimental depots is going to give me that.”
“Mon vieux,” Kuporovitch protested, “if you visited the Headquarters of the Sussex Fusiliers in England, would you expect to find your Adjutant-General there to give you the figures of the British Army’s potential for nineteen-forty-two?”
“Damn it, Stefan, no. But Alyabaiev is one of the Russian A.G.’s people, and quite a high-up. I thought it an incredibly lucky break to have got on to a man like that so quickly. Having tried him out with chicken-feed questions I went on quite smoothly to the wider problems of mobilising, training, and equipping huge numbers of men, but he didn’t seem to know anything about that at all. Of course, he may have been covering up. Security is pretty good in Britain, these days, and it’s probably even better here in Russia, where people who wag their tongues too much are liable to get a bullet in the mouth. But I definitely formed the impression that he had no idea at all what was going on outside Moscow, He just shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘Every man in Russia will fight and every woman too. We shall draw on them as we need them as long as there is one living enemy on Russian soil.’ Well, that’s fine, but it doesn’t give an inkling of how many Divisions they hope to have under arms by Christmas, and if a General of Alyabaiev’s standing doesn’t know that how the hell are we going to find anyone who does?”
Kuporovitch smiled. “It is, as I have often told you before, that Russia is different from other countries. In Britain, France, and the United States, thousands of people have a say in the running of affairs. Every new policy is explained to the public and argued out in the Chambers of Representatives and in the Press. In peacetime everyone who desires it has ready access to a mass of information about their fighting services, and even in wartime all officers of a fair seniority can form a reasonably good appreciation of the extent to which their services are being expanded. But it is not like that here.”
He lit a cigarette and went on: “The Russian people are told nothing, except what their rulers require them to do. The Supreme Council, which is elected from all the other so-called Councils of People’s Commissars, does not mean a thing. It is simply a megaphone to announce the decisions of the little Camorilla that really runs the country. This is composed of three small Committees—the Secretariat, the Polit-Bureau and the Organisational Bureau. Stalin and a few others have seats on all three of them, but the total membership numbers only sixteen. The real truth about what goes on in Russia, the actual progress of the Five-Year Plans, her relations with foreign States, the strength and condition of her fighting services, her secret aspirations and future intentions, have, for years past, been known only to this small handful of men; so, although it may seem strange to you, it is really quite natural that a man like Alyabaiev should have very little idea of his country’s military resources.”
“But surely the General Staff must know about such things.” Gregory argued. “How, if they don’t, can they possibly hope to run a war successfully?”
“The Marshals would know,” Kuporovitch conceded, “and a few of their personal staff officers would get a glimpse of the big picture—but no more. You see, Russia is ninety times the size of England, Scotland and Wales together, so it is possible, and from the dictatorship point of view desirable, to run it in watertight compartments. A dozen different Generals are, no doubt, now raising and training armies each bigger than those of say, Holland or Sweden, in various parts of the Soviet Union, but this little group in the Kremlin alone knows what their efforts will all add up to. Believe me, Gregory, that is so. As a General myself I have held many commands, but never was I allowed to know a single thing about policy, plans or resources that did not concern me personally.”
Gregory grinned. “I must confess that I thought you were just being pessimistic when you’ve said this sort of thing before. It seems, though, that I owe you an apology.”
“Forget it, mon ami. I am only distressed that there is so little help that I can give you; but I have always felt that this task is one which should have been given to the head of your Military Mission, and not to a private individual.”
“That would not have filled Sir Pellinore’s bill, because he wanted an entirely independent report. Still, say General Mason Mac had been charged with the job, what could he have done that he won’t certainly have done already—namely, ask in the most diplomatic language for any information that his opposite numbers care to give him as to what future defence lines are now being prepared and what resources are likely to be available to man them. You know, as well as I do, that they won’t tell him anything, or, if they do, it will have no relation to the truth.”
Kuporovitch’s lazy blue eyes showed a slight animation as he leaned forward and tapped the table. “That may well be, but your General will at least have the chance of meeting some of the Marshals; then, just between good friends when a bottle or two of vodka has been drunk, he might get something off the record.”
“Then it all boils down to getting hold of one of these twenty-odd top boys. You’re convinced that is the only way in which we can get the information we require?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you know any of these big shots personally?”
“I have never met any of the political leaders, but I have served under most of the Marshals—Budenny, Yegerov, Blücher and, as you know, Voroshilov was my friend and protector for many years.”
“Budenny is in the field commanding the Southern group of armies, Blücher is watching the Japs in the Far East and Voroshilov is boxed up in Leningrad; so they are all ungetatable. How about Yegerov?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea where he is. He may be dead now for all I know. Hundreds of high officers were executed for complicity in the Tukachevsky conspiracy years after it happened, and I had heard nothing of Yegerov for a long time before I left Russia, so he may quite well have been implicated by some belated confession, and duly eliminated.”
“Then, by hook or by crook, we must get to the headquarters of one of the others. As Voroshilov was a personal friend of yours, he is obviously far and away the best bet.”
Kuporovitch grunted. “He was my friend, but Clim is not the sort of man to look kindly on a deserter. If I walked into his office tomorrow the odds are that he’d shout for a firing squad to have me shot.”
“If you could stay his hand for the first five minutes you’d be all right,” Gregory replied. “He may be impetuous by nature, but he is quick to grasp a situation and very reasonable to talk to. At least, that’s how he struck me when I met him in Finland.”
“You were then passing as a German, under the name of Colonel Baron von Lutz,” Kuporovitch remarked.
“That’s true; so his first instinct would be to have me shot too, if I suddenly bob up again flourishing a British passport.”
For a moment they sat silent, then Kuporovitch stubbed out his cigarette and said: “You are right about Voroshilov being the best bet; not because he was once my friend, but because, Stalin apart, he could give you more accurate information than any other man in Russia. As Commissar for Defence and Supreme Commander of all the Soviet fighting forces it was he who laid down Russia’s programme of re-armament and finally settled our strategy in the event of a war with Germany. Moreover, he is the only Marshal who has a seat on any of the three key Committees that control the destinies of the U.S.S.R. However, to see him we shall have to get to Leningrad, and since it is now besieged that will not be easy. If we succeed in that, the chances are that, in a besieged city, our British passports will not be the slightest protection and he will have us both shot. Even if he does not, the odds against his talking freely to either of us about Russia’s resources and strategy are simply fantastic. On the other hand, if you kick your heels here till doomsday I am convinced that you will learn nothing of the least value, so if you really feel that you should take on this outrageous gamble, I’ll go to Leningrad with you.”
Gregory took his feet off the desk and leaning forward, laid a hand on the Russian’s shoulder.
“You marvellous old devil,” he smiled, giving his friend an affectionate little shake. “All right. We’ll both gamble our necks against British arms for Russia. Let’s go to Leningrad.”